


The other side of the thread

by LadyKarasuNM



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Body Horror, Light Pining, M/M, Monster Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Mutual Masturbation, Post-Fall of Overwatch, SEP era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:00:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKarasuNM/pseuds/LadyKarasuNM
Summary: When your life is joined by a thread to someone else's and it shows, that is your soulmate. But finding them doesn't mean the rest of the journey it's going to be easy.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 7
Kudos: 71
Collections: Reaper76 Free For All Secret Santa 2019





	The other side of the thread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tomodraws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tomodraws/gifts).



> Hello hello!! This fic was for the R76 Secret Santa and oh my Goddess, has it been a challenge doing it!  
> I a lot of prompts to fill, so I tried to fill as many as I could, in this case were a soulmate AU, monster Gabe and, not exactly a request but I took it as a recommendation, a NSFW part.  
> I really, absolutely, and completely hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it <3

There is a theory that every person in the world, human and omnic alike, has his soul spun like a thread that interlocks with a million other threads of life, weaving the tapestry of life. Every time a friend, a family member, or even a complete stranger crosses our path, the threads interlock, creating the history of our life. But the thread doesn’t belong only to one person, but two, each one holding one end of it. This is what were called soulmates. 

According to this myth, when two soulmates touch for the first time, the thread that unites them would make itself visible for a moment, branding and bonding their ring fingers.

When he was just a little boy, Jack loved to dream about who would his soulmate be, how would they be. Would they be tall? Maybe shorter than him? Cleverer? Probably beautiful as the most beautiful flower of his backyard, he was sure of it (and that was saying something, he loved his backyard flowers very much). 

When he entered in high school, he was absolutely static. There was so many people! He was completely sure he would meet his soulmate between them. At first, every time he shook someone’s hand, he felt his heart rate spike with anticipation, but nothing ever happened. No flashing light, no thread, no new marks. Nothing. His enthusiasm started diminishing with each passing year and, by the time he was in his last year of school he felt like life had played a joke on him.

Since he lived in a small village in Indiana, he didn’t have many opportunities to meet new people. This translated to the fact that, at the end of his school years, practically all of his friends had already found their soulmates, while his was nowhere to be seen. 

He decided that he needed to get out of the little village that had seen him grow, and seeing the upcoming troubles with the omnics, he thought he could go out and help people joining the military. 

As soon as he enrolled, he was sent to Indianapolis to receive his basic training. At the beginning he felt completely lost, out of his home, of his village, of his comfort zone, with only new people surrounding him, some with a carefully practiced routine already going on, and others just barking orders at him from day one. But as soon as he got the rhythm of it, he started to outshine the rest of his teammates. His times were the best, his marks the highest; but not happy with only that, but he found out he absolutely loved encouraging his teammates so they could do as good as he did. He was prone to speeches and clapping other’s backs for boosting their morale. Some of his superiors joked that, one day, he would break the cheerleader pompoms to motivate the other recruits and they wouldn’t even be surprised at that point. 

As a result of this, the very same day he finished his mandatory basic training, he was offered a position in a new classified governmental elite group: the Supersoldier Enhancement Program. 

He accepted without thinking it twice. 

Apparently, the program had been running for a couple months now, and the majority of recruits already knew each other. That didn’t stop Jack from becoming once again an inspirational beacon for his new teammates. 

He had come with two other new recruits from his basic training, and so he was assigned one of them as a roommate, since the quarters were made for two. He already knew the guy, he was a good kid, bright eyed and as naïve as he was about all that SEP thing they were getting themselves into. Everything was fine. 

Until he met his match. 

The man was one of the high ranking cadets. Ruthless in every aspect they could see. he was always pushing the people to their limits when he was on training duty. His marks were the top of them all, didn’t matter what category they were looking at. He was a brilliant tactician, always making sure his team won the combat simulations. Because of all of this, despite all his Adonis visage and dreamy physic, he wasn’t exactly very well loved between his fellow soldiers. And to top it all, he seemed to hate specifically Jack’s guts with a burning passion. That was Gabriel Reyes for him.

So when, three months into the program, his roommate dropped out due to health problems and he was reassigned a new partner, he felt pure dread at hearing Reyes’ name. The guy was probably going to kill him in his sleep or something like that. 

He prepared himself for the arrival, gathered the scarce belongings he had lying around, made sure his little room was spotless and panicked a little in the process. He was going to share with a superior, after all. 

He was sat on the top bunk, reading some paperback when the door of the room burst open and a very pissed looking Gabriel Reyes stomped into the room. Jack looked at him owlishly for a second, but before he could get his greeting out, the other cut him.

“No, it’s not a good afternoon. So please, don’t break the beautiful silence with your fucking chit chat.” He all but growled without looking at him, while he threw unceremoniously his duffel at the bottom bunk. Jack closed his mouth with an audible clack of teeth and gathered courage through inhaling a concerning amount of air through his nose that made him a little dizzy. 

“Okay, look. I know we didn’t start with the right foot, but we are gonna have to live in the same space,” he left his book aside and got down from the bed, landing in front of Gabriel, “So why don’t we start over?” He offered his hand, “My name is Jack Morrison, nice to meet you.” 

The other looked disbelievingly at his hand for a second, but he caved in with an patient hoof, “Nice to meet you, fucking ray of sunshine Jack Morri-” But he never got to finish his sentence, since as soon as he clasped the other’s hand for shaking it, a glowing golden thread appeared between them both, uniting their hands and branding their ring fingers like a hot iron, but instead of pure white hot pain, the only feeling they got from it was peace, warmth. 

They looked at each other, stunned. Jack was the first to regain consciousness of his talking capabilities, “Wa- was that… What I think it was?” He asked, a little shaky in his tone, not quite believing he had found him, he had finally gone and found him, his soulmate was in front of him!

Gabriel snapped back to reality with the sound of his voice, which made him retire his hand as if he had been scalded, “No.” He said matter-of-factly, with a gravity that left no quarrel for debate, right before turning for the door and leaving as quickly as possible. 

Jack could only stare blankly at the spot the other had vacated not a second ago, feeling how the adrenaline rush and pure happiness he had felt upon seeing the glowing thread were plummeting with the fact that said soulmate he had just found, had bailed out on him without a second thought. And he probably hated him even more now for being stuck with him, as a roommate and as a soulmate. 

He was fucked. 

The more he thought about it, the lower his spirits fell. He only wanted to curl into a tight ball and never get up. And, more or less, that’s exactly what he did, he closed the door to his room, turned the light off and crawled into his bed, covering his head with the blanket. 

He didn’t know if he fell asleep or not, but after what he supposed were hours and well entered the night, he heard the room’s door open and Reyes entering, changing into his sleeping clothes and getting into bed, making the bunk beds move with his weight. Jack could only hold it together and not break then and there. 

The next days of their relationship where… Nonexistent. And not because the days themselves didn’t exist, but their relationship. They ignored each other, going about their routines as independently from the other as they could, barely not speaking to each other outside their duties, and if they acknowledged the other’s existence was only for mere necessity. 

This situation went on for almost two weeks, until after a particularly hard and frustrating afternoon training, that left Jack feeling ready to strangle anyone on his path. Sadly, the only one there after he got back to his quarters to shower, was Gabriel, sprawled on his bed reading a magazine. He had barreled through the door directly to small bathroom and shower, but as soon as he reentered the room, he got a weird look from the other man that rubbed him in all the wrong ways and set him off. 

“What is your goddamn problem with me, Reyes?!” He spat at him with all the frustration of his day. 

“My problem? It’s you who have been ignoring me for fucking weeks!” He discarded the magazine carelessly to the side and got up, facing Morrison with his chest puffed like a bird. 

“So it’s my fault _you_ decided to leave me alone and just walk out of a moment that should have been wonderful and happy!” He neared him like a bull, getting toe to toe with him and punctuating his accusation with a finger on his chest. 

Gabriel’s answer started with a growl for the picking on him, “I needed to fucking think! It was you who gave me the cold shoulder and never let me fucking explain myself!” 

“Oh, and now you are gonna tell me you wanted to say something like ‘hey! I hate your existence and I think you are an inconvenience to my life, but lets try a relationship since a magic thingy said we are made for each other!’, was it something like that?” His tone dripping with sarcasm and badly masked hurt. 

“No! I mean, yes! I don’t hate you, and I do want to try.” He groaned in exasperation and rubbed his face with his hands, “That’s what I wanted to talk about. I do want to try.” 

After that, Jack felt how his anger deflated like a punctured balloon, “You… You want to try?” 

Gabriel nodded, his face with the softest expression Jack had ever seen on him. “Yes, of course I do. But do you?” He never got a verbal answer, since Jack just launched himself forward, capturing his lips in a rough but filled with relief kiss, a kiss that tasted like coming home, like he was finally where he belonged. It was brief, and when they parted, their gazes locked for a second. Nobody will ever know what they saw in the other’s eyes, but the next kiss they shared was pure sweetness. 

After the second kiss came a third, and a fourth, and a fifth… Each as sweet as the last one, but the next always bolder than the previous. Their hands started shy, Gabriel’s at Jack’s waist, while the other’s hands went straight for his neck. At the beginning the touches, the kisses, the caresses, were more sentiment than need, but soon the temperature of the room started rising and Gabriel’s hands found their way under the hem of Jack’s t-shirt, exploring with calloused fingers the soft skin under it, roaming through the lower part of his torso. Jack didn’t want to stay behind, and so he started sliding his palms over the shoulders and upper back of Gabriel, feeling every muscle tense and move under his touch, making him want to see them, to touch more and more of them. This was his soulmate, and he was damn gorgeous, so like hell he wasn’t going to enjoy it. 

A light chuckle left Jack when Gabriel lost patience fighting against his t-shirt, so he claudicated and motioned for him to take it off, which Jack gladly did, leaving himself bare chested for the other’s content. He hadn’t taken as many injections of the SEP treatment yet, and it showed in his lankier frame compared to Reyes’. He wasn’t small, having a clear triangle form that was making itself more and more clear with each round of serum, but he was still a couple inches shorter than Gabriel. Despite his still changing and muscling body, his soulmate looked at him as he would a perfect piece of art. For a second, Jack felt self conscious under his scrutiny, but it was short lived. 

“God, you are beautiful” Gabriel breathed, taking his own shirt off and latching again to Jack’s body with what looked full intention to devour him. Jack felt himself zeroing in on the sensation of his bare skin on Gabriel’s, the shared warmth of their bodies, the softness of the touch. His hands went of their own accord to the other’s chest, pressing his palms flat against it and caressing every inch of cinnamon skin in his reach. Gabriel let him explore, holding him patiently by the waist, closing his eyes when Jack’s fondling reached his face and he started to stroke him with the utmost reverence, mapping him as if he wanted to learn every nook and plane of him, ending with his fingers carding through the longest parts of his curls that weren’t gone with his buzz cut. He hadn’t reopened his eyes yet when his lips were captured again eagerly, feeling how Jack lost slightly his balance due to him having to go on his tiptoes to reach him properly. With a smile against the other’s lips, Gabriel stabilized him, but instead of leaving him continue exploring, he slid his hands to cup Jack’s ass, grabbing it and lifting him up in his arms without breaking the kiss. Jack let out a tiny yelp of surprise that was muffled against the other’s lips, and braced his legs around Reyes’ torso. 

From his new vantage point, Jack could now reach more comfortably all of Gabriel's face, which he took advantage of for peppering kisses everywhere. Gabriel started to recoil towards the bunk beds, falling sat onto his bed with Jack still in his arms, but now he was seated on his lap. Since he already had his hands on the goods, Gabriel shamelessly went massaging Jack’s ass, making his own mouth water thinking of all the things he would do to that body given the time. 

But he didn’t have the time now. 

Having the semi naked body of his soulmate plastered against him, his hands everywhere, his eagerness clear, was taking his toll on him in the form of a rather obvious and growing bulge tenting his pants quite tightly. It made him feel better that when he found a second to look down, his partner wasn’t doing any better, having his hips moving unconsciously, searching for Gabriel’s contact. 

Gabriel thrusted his hips forward once, experimentally, more to get Jack’s attention than anything. And that exactly he got. When the blond felt the sudden movement, the momentary press exactly where he needed it… His focus snapped to Gabriel’s face once more, who asked him silently permission to continue. Jack, far from backing away, slithered his palms towards the other’s waistband and, diving to capture his lips once more, freed his hardening member, earning for himself a moan that he swallowed hungrily. 

The moment he began palming him, Gabriel broke the kiss and his head lolled back, taking ragged breaths, “You’re… N-naughtier than I… Expected… For a fucking… R-ray of sunshine…” He panted from the other ministrations. Jack took full advantage of the exposure of his neck and went directly to kiss and nip the sensitive skin he had now exposed in front of him, chuckling at the commentary. 

But his cocky posse fell quickly when he felt how Gabriel’s hands unclenched from his ass and went directly for his own fly, sliding it open and getting his hand in, gathering him in his fist and pumping him once. To stop himself from crying in surprise, he bit too hard into Gabriel’s neck, leaving behind clear teeth marks that would probably be still visible in the morning.

Jack, as a revenge, took him in his hand fully, and completely freeing him from his underwear, went on pumping him and biting lovemarks all over his neck and shoulder. Gabriel, on his part, pressed the tip of his cock with his thumb, drawing circles, making Jack lose all coherent thought that was still in his mind, groaning against the older’s skin. 

Their teasing got to a point where it wasn’t enough for any of them, so Gabriel made Jack move even closer to him by grabbing again his ass with his free hand, and with the other grabbed them both in the same fist. Hypersensitive skin against hypersensitive skin. Both bodies hot against one another. 

Jack’s reaction was to cover the other man’s hand with his own while the other grabbed at his back, leaving his nails imprinted with every hip thrust from both of them. “You’re so... fucking hot…” Came suddenly Gabriel’s voice right in his ear, since he had lolled his head back forward and he had his forehead tapped on Morrison’s shoulder. But Jack wasn’t in control of his faculties enough for a more complex answer than panting and grunting. 

Everything was too much. Too much contact. Too much sentiment. Too much pressure on his aching cock. Too much to handle. It was overbearing. 

And then, everything exploded under his eyelids. 

With a low, deep growl and blinding white hot pleasure, he came between their fingers. Through his own high, he didn’t knew what made it for him, if it was his sounds, the blunted nails digging in his back or just seeing him tip over the edge, but he could feel how Gabriel came at the same time as him, his moans too loud for not having been heard by half of their brigade at least. Not that they cared in that moment.

As they came down from their bliss, they slumped against each other, breathing heavily. “I… I have wanted to do that for two weeks…” Reyes confessed in a low confiding tone, to what Jack nodded enthusiastically. 

“Yeah, me too…” 

“We are two idiots that better learn how to communicate, and fast” Gabriel snorted, feeling how his body started to turn to jelly in the afterglow. 

“Yeah…” He agreed, his brain going directly to the nights of pinning, alone in his own bed, not able to even talk to his own soulmate who was just sleeping underneath him, far away enough to be out of his reach. He was suddenly brought back to the present by his partner falling back onto the mattress with his abdomen and chest covered in white. “Wait here, I’ll go get something to clean us up.” He told him before disentangling himself from him and going on shaky legs to the bathroom to retrieve a towel, cleaning himself before giving it to him. In the meantime he toweled himself off, Jack changed into his pajamas and was left with the dilemma of which bed he should get into. But his problem was quickly solved when Gabriel changed into his own nightwear, got into bed and looked at him questioning.

“Are you waiting a handwritten invitation to come to bed?” He asked with amusement in his sarcastic tone. Jack could only flash him with a 1000 watts smile, switch off the light, and get into bed with him, squeezing himself against his body to fit both their frames into the tight bed. 

They were cuddled, with the blanket covering both their frames, their sated needs making them fall asleep by the minute. 

“Gabriel?” Jack asked out of the blue, “Can I call you Gabriel?”

“You are not calling me Officer in bed, that’s for damn sure” He mumbled, too soft.

“Okay…” He stopped for a moment, readjusting to lean his head onto the other’s chest as a pillow, “Gabriel… What did you think when you saw the bond form?” 

To that question, he instantly perked up, “You want to know why I left you here and went flying through the door, right?” Jack just nodded, thing he felt more than saw in the darkness of the room. He sighed, “Actually… I didn’t think. That was the problem. I panicked and just… Ran.”

“Panicked?”

“Dude, I thought the universe or whoever the fuck manages this things was just trying to screw me over because, you know? You are the prettiest guy over here, you broke half my top marks the first week you got here, the majority of the camp already adores you… When I saw the thread…” He raised his hand with the bonding mark on it, “I thought you would want something better than the grumpy Latino dude that had been making your life a living hell for months.” 

Jack looked at him with his brows furrowed, “Me? I thought you were the one that didn’t want anything to do with me. I thought that you hated me and I didn’t even know why.” 

“I didn’t hate you!” Gabriel scoffed and looked away, “I envied you. You are better than me in a lot of fields, and you know how to make people love you. In case you didn’t notice, I don’t know how to do that. I thought you were a creation with the sole purpose to spite me every day, but well… Now I know better.” 

Jack reached to grab Gabriel’s chin and turn it towards himself to make him look at him, “People start better loving you and worshiping the soil you step on, because if any of us is going to get us out this war alive, it’s you and your brilliant tactician mind. And yeah, we might have started with the wrong foot, but because we are equals, and we got into the other’s way. Now that we know, we are going to be invincibles together, and nobody is going to separate us. Understood?” His tone had gone from soft and sweet to completely adamant about it. 

“Understood.”

**********************************************************************************************

  
  


It had been many years, decades even, since that first kiss with the love of his life. They had both become the most powerful force the Earth had ever seen. They won the war. They won each other’s hearts. They won peace for all. 

Until they didn’t anymore, and everything fell to ashes. 

Time had seen them in different sides of the battlefield, never able to strike the other down but neither letting anyone else take the job for them. 

Now the end of the day saw the old Soldier watching the sunset sitting by a rock, no gloves, no mask, no armoured jacket on. Only him and a bottle of bourbon. 

As the dark was falling, a shadow crawled from the darkest corner of the ruins of the Swiss Headquarter. The black mist moved silently, with the ease of an experienced predator hunting its prey. It neared the Soldier quickly, and if he saw it, he didn’t give any indication of it. It waited, patiently, watching him take a swing of liquor directly from the bottle. It approached him even more, stalking him, confusing itself with his own shadow, so close now, ready to strike… To coalesce into the form of a black cladded man. 

“I thought you wouldn’t come.” Was the Soldier’s greeting. 

“You wanted to see me?” The Reaper asked, synthetic voice void of the majority of his emotion inflexions. 

“Yes.” He stated, gesturing for him to sit down beside him. The Reaper vacillated for a second before accepting the offer and joining him. “The war with Talon is almost over, Gabriel. You have done your part, you have done much more than any other to bring them to their knees. Now it’s time to leave your cover and come home, don’t you think?”

“What is home for me anymore, Jack? I never had a house or a place waiting for my return.”

“ _Me._ I’m your home, and I’m still waiting for you to come back to me.” 

The wraith averted the void gaze of his mask, “You don’t know what you are talking about. You are waiting for a man long dead. I’m not him anymore, you would do good remembering.” 

“Stop it, Gabe. You are my soulmate, my other half, whether you want it or not. And I’m sure you are in front of me now, so you are very much alive.”

“You don’t understand, Jack…” 

“Then help me understand.” 

“I am a monster!” He growled in his face, his mask almost touching the Soldier’s nose. 

He looked back, unfazed by the display, “Let me be the judge of it. Take off your mask, angel.” 

The old nickname felt like a punch to the gut. He exhaled and, with deliberately slow movements, the Reaper took off his clawed gauntlets, leaving them aside and revealing grey, charred skin that fell and regenerated into wisps of black smoke. Then, without removing his cowl, he unclasped the mask and took it off, letting it aside with the gauntlets. 

As the Soldier was about to ask him to look at him, he took off the hood of his coat too, revealing an incomprehensible mass of scarred grey skin and tendrils of pure black mist that floated around him as if they were made of the same grey tissue as the skin, but non corporeal enough to be considered matter. When he raised his head, his gaze was composed by four pair of blood red, glowing eyes. His nose was almost nonexistent, without cartilage, the bone was visible through grey and black. His mouth had so many teeth that some of them peeked outside of his chapped, broken lips, a part from being visibles through a hole in one of his cheeks where it looked like the skin had vanished and hadn’t rematerialised enough to make it corporeal again yet. 

He was hideous. 

But Jack just looked at him and only felt the same love he had always felt for him. He went to reach for his face, to caress it, but he avoided it. “What have they done to you?” 

“Moira was trying to help me with the decaying of my cells, combined with a building falling on top of me, this is the result. I told you I was a monster.”

“You are not a monster. You are Gabriel Reyes, it doesn't matter what you look like. And we are going to find a way to help you.” He stated completely convinced. 

Since he didn’t want him to touch his face he went to take his hand, but as soon as the Soldier’s fingers contacted with the tendrils of smoke, a glowing golden thread appeared out of nowhere, branding and bonding them again over their old markings, like the universe wanted to make sure they were together by renewing their votes. 

They looked at each other for a second, just stunned. 

“I told you I wasn’t the same man…” He only got to say.

“And I told you, you were still my soulmate,” He remarked by lacing his newly branded hand with the smoking fingers. “We are still only one soul, doesn’t matter what happens. So now, you are going to come to Overwatch with me, have all the honors and clearing of your name that you deserve, and see if Angela can revert whatever that Irish witch did. Understood?” The tone was so authoritative and so familiar to him, that he only nodded. 

“Understood.” 


End file.
